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PlexConnect: Connecting Plex and the Apple TV

The Apple TV is a nifty little device but itâs nowhere close to being able to play anything you want. It cannot play from USB drives. And it canât play network shares either. Not from AFP, not from SMB, not from DLNA. Thereâs no app store for the Apple TV (yet) so thereâs not installing and running the Plex Player app. So it canât play from from Plex Media Server either. At least not directly.

Fortunately, there is a workaround: PlexConnect. And it is genius! You see, some of the built-in Apple TV apps get their UI and content from remote web servers. So it was a matter of hijacking the web traffic to from one of these apps and redirect it to PlexConnect running on local machine. PlexConnect then communicates with Plex Media Server and serves up modified UI and content to the hijacked app on the Apple TV. Of course, the hijacked app wonât work as before anymore.

Normally the hijacked app is the Trailers app. But since I didnât have the Trailers app on my Apple TV, I used the WSJ app instead. If you have the same situation then in the instructions below replace of âtrailersâ with âwsjappâ and replace of âtrailers.apple.comâ with âvideoâapiâsecure.wsj.comâ

9. Run PlexConnect by first opening a terminal window (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal), then type the following:

sudo â/Applications/PlexConnect-master/PlexConnect.pyâ

Provide your Administrator password to complete PlexConnect startup.

You should now see messages like these in the terminal window:

Write down the IP_Self: ###.###.###.### address. This is the IP of your PlexConnect server

On the Apple TV, choose Settings > General > Network > Wi-Fi. Then Choose your Wi-Fi network Name Change the DNS setting from âAutomaticâ to âManualâ.Enter the IP of your PlexConnect server as the DNS server.

Go to the AppleTV settings menu. Select General then scroll the cursor down to highlight Send Data To Apple and set to âNoâ.

With âSend Data To Appleâ highlighted, press Play (not the normal Select button) and you will be prompted to add a profile.